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February 19, 2011, 6:27 am

Question: Oil in coolant. Oh my.

My 97 Venture with 175k on it is losing coolant very slowly (1pt/300 miles) and the coolant is gunking up. At first I was perplexed but this morning I got my finger down inside the coolant pipe and found that the gunk has a noticeable smell of motor oil. I'm a bit surprised that coolant is going out and oil is coming in simultaneously, but with this particular model it points to the obvious culprit --

Demonic Possession.

This has been an exceptionally good car and short of gaskets about four years back has been very inexpensive to run. I'm trying to decide if it's worth fixing or would I be better off just shooting it.. The AC is shot so this is a decision I'd likely make this spring.

One curve ball in the mix. I own a second one of these with 125k on it, it's in generally better health. I could swap out the new tires on the beater and grab the few fit and finish pieces that have broken on the newer one.

Oh one last thing -- I don't seem to be losing very much oil. I have gunk in the coolant and it smells like oil, but my dipstick shows right in the middle of the normal range. Very strange.

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